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Unvaccinated Cruise Experience


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I was wondering, has anybody been on a recent cruise and been unvaccinated? If so, how was the experience? We have an upcoming cruise and have paid our final payment. We have every intention of going on the cruise and are going to be unvaccinated. I was wondering, for those that were unvaccinated and on a recent sailing, how was it? Did you feel like you still got the cruise experience even though you were limited? I was wondering how the dining situation was in the MDR and how it was visiting ports. We plan to have excursions in every port except CocoCay.

*I do not want any judgement towards being unvaccinated and do not want this to turn into a vax debate*

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I cruised last weekend vaccinated but with an unvaccinated member of our group and we also picked up another unvaccinated friend to hang out with while on board so I do have some experience.

In general the vaccinated/unvaccinated experience was pretty much the same.

Vax - had to bring our vaccine cards with us to show at check-in, Unvax - had to take a test a couple of days before the cruise and again at the terminal ; we went through the whole process as a group so no difference. Technically if we had ditched our unvax we could have been on board in 10 minutes instead of 45 since we wouldn't have had to wait for the test results but it was no big deal.

Outdoors - no masks required anywhere, any social distancing that was in place was in place for all passengers (they took out a lot of chairs but people moved them around based on their group sizes so outside of making the whole deck more open it really wasnt social distancing). The solarium area was designated for vaccinated only, i didnt see anyone checking at all but i suppose technically unvax were restricted to the main pool deck.

Indoors - most of the indoor area was "general population" meaning everyone could mingle so it was masks on for all passengers. There were a handful of bars/lounges/shows that were designated as vaccinated only but it was generally the minority and in the case of shows there was usually a "general population" one and then a vax only one at a different time so all could attend you just had to pay attention to which show time.

Ports - CocoCay was completely unrestricted. Nassau was Royal sponsored excursions required for unvax to leave the ship, so we just stayed on board.

In general the Vax/Unvax experience didnt seem very different, more minor inconveniences than a major deal and I did not see any sign of passengers "looking" to see if others were vax or not.

EDIT - Forgot restaurants - there were some areas of the MDR designated Vax only and others mixed group, I think Chops was all access but Izumi was Vax only. The pizza, snacks, buffet were all open access.

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On 7/23/2021 at 8:46 AM, jticarruthers said:

Ports - CocoCay was completely unrestricted. Nassau was Royal sponsored excursions required for unvax to leave the ship, so we just stayed on board.

In general the Vax/Unvax experience didnt seem very different, more minor inconveniences than a major deal and I did not see any sign of passengers "looking" to see if others were vax or not.

EDIT - Forgot restaurants - there were some areas of the MDR designated Vax only and others mixed group, I think Chops was all access but Izumi was Vax only. The pizza, snacks, buffet were all open access.

Wow thank you so much for this! I know you said you stayed on board, but by any chance, do you know how it worked for after excursions? I wonder if there were specific lines to guide you back on the ship once the excursion concluded. 

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19 hours ago, ClockingOut said:

Wow thank you so much for this! I know you said you stayed on board, but by any chance, do you know how it worked for after excursions? I wonder if there were specific lines to guide you back on the ship once the excursion concluded. 

Touched base with an unvax friend who was on Freedom but did take a tour in Nassau.

She indicates that they were escorted off and on the boat from the tour, zero chance to "slip away" post tour or anything like that.

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On 7/28/2021 at 9:20 AM, jticarruthers said:

Touched base with an unvax friend who was on Freedom but did take a tour in Nassau.

She indicates that they were escorted off and on the boat from the tour, zero chance to "slip away" post tour or anything like that.

Perfect, that is exactly what I was wondering about! Thank you so so much. Now I have to figure out how I can get my shopping in, might need to change some excursions lol.

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